SIDE STREETS: It's so cold that homeless shelters are filling up

The words "it's so cold that" are either the beginning of a joke or the start of a complaint.

Try this.

It's so cold, there are 13 people sleeping in the overflow homeless shelter at the Unitarian Church, 309 N. Main St.

"They're all outside getting their cigarette," says Diane McDonald, who volunteers at the shelter, which can hold 15 and has 13 booked for Thursday night, when the temperature outside is 10 above and heading down.

Once you check in for the night, they take and hold your cigarettes and any medications you might have. Last smoke is last smoke, too. After that, when you leave, you can't come back.

There were two guys booked for the last two beds but, as McDonald puts it, they had "incidents."

Jay drags on a cigarette, blows out a huge cloud of smoke and frozen breath.

"I've been staying here for two weeks," he says. Jay says he's looking for work.

"I'll take anything," he says.

"I had a job," he says, a little wistfully. "My probation officer, I missed a payment and I got 30 days."

Thirty was gone long enough to lose the job.

Jay had been living at another homeless shelter but lost his place when, as he puts it, "I went out for New Year's Eve."

He heads inside, walking toward the square of yellow light coming from the church's side door.

"I was living at my mother's," Elise says, her small, pale face burrowed deep into the hood of her dark blue parka.

"She gets a little loopy when she's off her meds," Elise says. "She threw me and my boyfriend out for no reason.

"The cops took us out," Elise says.

"I'd rather be here with strangers than with my crazy family," she says defiantly.

I ask her if she has kids.

"No," Elise says quickly. "Thank God."

"This is my fourth year," says volunteer Ed Stevens, who collects clothing for the shelter and is always looking for donations.

"I've got to hit some of the banks," he says.

Inside, the cigarettes are handed over for the night.

The beds are laid out in rows in a very clean room with white walls. The blankets on the beds are several different colors. The room is warm and a television set is on in the corner.

In the small kitchen, Stevens offers me coffee. McDonald has brought in a plate of homemade pumpkin bars with white icing.

Three women tonight. Ten men. No one looks dirty. No one is drunk or high. No one swears. Many get under the covers as soon as they get into the room.

"It used to be all men," McDonald says. "Now, we're seeing a lot more young girls.

"They stay with friends during the day," MCcDonald says. "But they don't trust them at night."

A young guy with a ponytail steps into the kitchen, asks for a sandwich.

"What kind do you want?" McDonald asks. "Roast beef?"

"Roast beef would be perfect," he says.

We sit at a table next to the bed where he'll sleep tonight.

"I got the old screw job," he says, telling me his unemployment benefits ran out back in December.

"I was living in a rooming house," he says.

He left the rooming house when money got tight but he didn't leave owing any money. He didn't want to be evicted for nonpayment of rent.

"I want to be able to go back if I get a job," he says.

He's got an English degree from a four-year college and he's been sober for two years.

His clothes are neat, blue jeans and a gray work shirt.

He walks around the city during the day, hangs out a little at the library downtown.

"I fill out applications," he says. "There's nothing else you can do. You have to keep your hopes."

In the bed in the middle of the room, a man with a shaved head closes his eyes and sighs just a little, the way people do when they're getting ready to sleep. He's laying on his back, the blanket pulled up to his Adam's apple.

Outside, very few cars pass down North Main Street and the wind comes up steady from the water.